About District Programs
In addition to its community grant funding programs, Sequoia Healthcare District provides direct services in areas affecting community health such as the public schools (Healthy Schools Initiative) and public community gathering places — recreation facilities, civic buildings and certain other locales such as senior centers (HeartSafe). The district also is midway through a ten-year commitment to guarantee the availability of skilled hospital nurses (Nursing Education Program) in the community. Details of those programs follow.
• Nursing Education
To prepare a ready supply of registered nurses for our community, the Sequoia Healthcare District has created a unique partnership with Cañada College, San Francisco State University (SFSU), and Sequoia Hospital, the goal being to produce 300-400 new nurses for this region over the next ten years. The Sequoia Hospital/SFSU BSN Satellite Program at Cañada College addresses the bottleneck in nursing education by facilitating the ability of the schools to increase their capacity to educate nurses, a notoriously expensive curriculum.
The Sequoia Healthcare District is underwriting the program in the amount of $1 million per year and has provided $650,000 for a state-of-the-art nursing skills lab on the Cañada College campus.
Sequoia Hospital, among other local healthcare facilities, has opened its doors for the students to do their clinical training there. Cañada College has opened its campus to provide the prerequisite and ancillary classes to the nursing students as well as room for the upper-division classes to be instructed by faculty from San Francisco State University. The accelerated program takes five semesters to complete, including summer courses. The first cohort began in September 2004. Graduates of the program will graduate with a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) degree.
Interested in becoming a nurse?
Click here to learn more about this highly acclaimed program and how to apply.
• HeartSafe Program
Sudden cardiac arrest suffered outside the hospital setting is responsible for approximately 350,000 deaths annually in the United States. Of those victims approximately 5,000 -7,000 are children. Defibrillation is the only effective treatment for sudden cardiac arrest.
Early defibrillation can mean the difference between life and death, an active and healthy life or a vegetative state. An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) is a small, portable device that analyzes heart rhythms. It offers the user voice-prompted instructions and, if determined to be necessary, can deliver a potentially lifesaving shock to a victim in cardiac arrest. An AED will not deliver a shock to anyone who is not in sudden cardiac arrest. AEDs are easy to use, compact, battery-operated and lightweight.
Sequoia Healthcare District’s HeartSafe Program makes AEDs available at a reduced rate or will donate equipment to eligible nonprofit organizations.
• 2011 Healthy Schools Initiative
Healthy Schools originated in requests to fund public school nurses filed with Sequoia Healthcare District beginning in 2009. Lack of state and local funding has hit public school districts hard, and Sequoia Healthcare District views the health of children as a major public health issue. Healthier, well-nourished children have a better chance of avoiding illness and chronic disease later in life.
The initiative adopts features of the coordinated school health model promulgated by the California Department of Education, the California Department of Health Services, the San Mateo County offices of education and health services and others to begin to assemble the infrastructure in the schools they may be able to carry on in the future.
Healthy Schools Initiative contact is Ms. Pamela Kurtzman at (650) 421-2155 ext 203 or at pkurtzman@sequoiahealthcaredistrict.com
District Kicks Off Healthy Schools Initiative
San Mateo County Board of Supervisors Presentation Aug. 24, 2010
Sequoia Healthcare District unveils $4.5 million, 3-year commitment for improvement of the health of more than 23,000 public school students in the Belmont-Redwood Shores, San Carlos and Redwood City elementary school districts and in the Sequoia Union High School District.
NEW! — ‘Walking School Bus’
In June the Sequoia Healthcare District partnered with Redwood City 2020 and the Redwood City School District to launch a pilot “Walking School Bus” effort at Fair Oaks Community School. Click the link to view the inaugural event.
